Last night I played at my crew's monthly for its second occurrence. We
played house for the first couple of hours while people slowly rolled into
the spot, Art Bar in Columbia. It's on Tuesday nights and Art Bar runs a $2
house liquor special then. So, as people slowly started to get their swerve
on, they'd start to inch their way to the dance floor. Soon we had a small,
but vibing crowd on the floor that were grooving, smiling, having fun; there
were a couple of failed attempts at breakdancing, and a few people brocking
out old school hip-hop moves. Classic buzzing dance floor business. People
started talking to me about how shocked they were to see me dropping house
tunes and wondered if I was going to play drum & bass later. The people were
feeling what was going on, so I let the kid I played back to back with keep
going, as he was making the floor groove. But finally I got back behind the
decks and proceeded to play drum & bass-couple of old cuts, several from the
last few months, and a variation of styles. It was great fun, and the party
slowly dwindled while I brought it the music down to minimal drum & bass,
finally ending with a tune on Dispatch by the classic act Hidden Agenda.
Everyone seemed to enjoy it, and we're excited to do it again next time.

So, this is drum & bass in the year 2002?

I have no idea. And I don't even want to try to answer what drum & bass is
in 2002: it's style elements, its politics, its artfulness, etc. For once in
my life, I'm pretty unconcerned with trying to explain the music in these
terms. Is it a culture? Sure, I guess in some ways it is. But how would you
define that culture? Thousands of folks who spend hours online on any given
day bullshitting about pretty much anything and trying to score the latest
promos off Red Eye or Chemical? Is it the cargo pants, DC shoes, and random
electronica t-shirt? Is it anyone who hangs out on DOA? Or Forward Bound? Or
US-Jungle, Arena, etc, etc? Does the music define the culture? If it does,
what happens to you when you're listening or playing other music? Are you
not a 'true playa'? DnB might be something you listen to 30% of your time
instead of 90%. Does that make you less of a junglist? You missed out on
"Inner City Life," "Demon's Theme," "Terminator," "Original Nuttah," and
"Bomb Scare" when they first came out. Does that rule you out?

In our attempts to discuss all these things on message boards and newsgroups
we always try to address some sort of rough rule or standard about drum &
bass culture and drum & bass music. Yet, rarely do we agree on much. Among
my closest friends online-that I share a lot with as far as 'principles' of
music and so forth-there are fairly significant discrepancies about the
aesthetics of drum & bass, what goes into being a good DJ, what we're trying
to do with the music, how we like to play it. And these ideas only come
together when we're listening to some good tunes and all enjoying it-maybe
with beers in hand, maybe without. Usually with beer. And that's when I'm
pogoing to some mental tune that Fresh just dropped, a few hours after
commenting on how I'm not really feeling the whole 'dark bombs' side of dnb.
That's when you see peeps doing some kind of running-in-place salsa dance to
some Marky tune when that very day they posted how the Latin sound is
contrived and simply a 'flavor of the moment." Or when people brock out to
"Grimey" despite firmly believing that Dillinja has sucked since his last
few classics on Metalheadz. All these grand notions fall to the wayside for
the important part of the music: Dancing. Partying. Getting your swerve on.
Acting a fool. Brocking out. Having that release. And most importantly,
having a good time.

I've been into drum & bass since '96. That's longer than a lot of you
people, and not nearly as long as other headz. It sort of puts me in the
middle. And being in Columbia, South Carolina, being a 'junglist' is a chore
as much as it is my favorite art and pasttime. I had to carry equipment with
me every week for a radio show for well over three years. I knew noone in
town who liked the music until a year into my show. And when I finally
started to meet a few people they were solely in to jump-up when I was
really feeling Photek, Metalheadz, Boymerang, Adam F. and those types of
peeps. It wasn't until another year had gone by that I met another kid into
drum & bass other than jump-up. And through those years there was very
little happening in the party scene aside from the same jump-up sets (with a
few variations in records.) for a couple of years. If we wanted records, we
had to drive over a hundred miles at the minimum to buy them. Then at some
point, the station got 1200s and a premixer connection. There were several
folks around who had a knowledge of drum & bass, and a few that even played
it. Drum & bass djs were actually becoming more on point and more diverse
playing out as well, with several sounds within drum & bass starting to
surface. After trading up road trips for online ordering, finally we got a
record store right here in town that sold drum & bass. Things were starting
to build into a little scene right here in Columbia. But since then there's
still been loads of setbacks and disheartening things happen. I graduated,
which was good. But then had to turn over the radio show. Egos have come in
to the scene, fucked up the vibe, and then left grumbling. Venues and clubs
either shut down or start losing interest in having nights there because of
the pathetic antics of people who tried to throw nights there in the past.
And of course, politics, politics, politics. And this all happening through
a period where jungle fell to arguably its lowest point and then started
becoming revitalized.

All this leads up to some basic feelings that have come over me in the last
few months.

First, I couldn't remotely care about the artistry of drum & bass any more.
That isn't to say I don't appreciate drum & bass as art-and amazing art at
that. In some cases I do. But I think I've come to grips with the fact that
most drum & bass-even tunes I play- isn't doing anything that artistic. Most
of drum & bass, jungle, hardcore, and most of dance music have been
'tracks'-that is music that was put together to play to a dance floor and
for people to shake to it. And for the first time in my life, that seems
like it's absolutely o.k. When an artist comes along like Orion or Polar or
Photek or Adam F., I absolutely love it. People like Bukem and Omni Trio who
have managed to make evocative music that's dance floor oriented are some of
my favorites, even if their most recent attempts have been weak by
comparison. But I'm not at the point where art dominates my notion of the
music anymore. Maybe that's good, maybe it's bad. But it just doesn't seem
important. As long as creative people who have passions to express do so
with the music, everything will take care of itself without me having to
worry about it. And in between the tracks that rapturously take me away, I
can bop and have fun to the ones that aren't as evocative, but groovy none
the less.

Secondly, jungle is not my life. I know, many of you are probably dismissing
all my thoughts on drum & bass now since I'm submitting that fact. But it's
true. I love books. I love comic books! I like drawing. I like "The
Ozbournes" and "The Simpsons." I like HOUSE music. And dub, and punk, and
glam rock, and David Lee Roth. I've been heavily involved with drum & bass
music everyday for the last 6 years of my life-trying to help organize
nights in my town, playing on a radio show, co-creating Americandnb.com and
contributing to other websites, going to parties, buying records, sharing
info online, etc, etc. But jungle is not my life. And I don't think I want
it to be. That's not to say I don't love the music and other junglists,
because I do. But it's not my life.

Third, fuck it. And that's the most important part, and one that I still
have troubles with today. (Case in point-"The Nine" at Miami this year.) But
seriously, fuck it! At different points over the years I've contemplated
stopping being involved with the music at all because of either debates
online that frustrated me about general air of nb or because I was tired of
seeing top ten lists look so similar time and time again or because I heard
an uninspired set and started thinking, "this is what drum & bass" had
turned into. But there's always been some great tune that pulled me back
into it. Or some really fun night out that made me want to play records
more. Or some truly inspiring set (most recently Orion in Charlotte) that
made me want to keep pushing myself with the music. But as for having this
burden of aesthetic principles, keeping it real, standing up for the music,
and all that shit-fuck it. It's muddied my joy for the music. I know what
I'm about and what the music is to me. That and my balls is all I need.

So, to follow this. Yeah, I'm gonna probably go off on some topic in the
future on some message board. And yeah, I'll probably comment about some
aspect I'm not feeling. I'm sure there will be moments where my love for the
music or my hatred of narrow mindedness will overtake the attitude that I
think is the most healthy: fuck it, and have fun. So, be ready for me to get
hypocritical up in this piece.

But, what do I think of the state of drum & bass in 2002?

It's great. It's terrible. It's as bad as the most petty thing I want to
bitch about and as great as the aspect that I big up the most. It's music
that is as viable now as it ever has been, and will continue to reinvent
itself when the next great soul comes along to push the envelope. And right
now, I'm enjoying it, and just can't be bothered with the semantics.